To make KudoZ glossary look more unifom by preventing unnecessary capitalization [people often post their queries in uppercase], it would be helpful to introduce a warning prompt for those who enter terms to make them recheck capitalization where uppercase letters are used. Prompt might sound like \"You are about to enter capitalized words. Are you sure the use uf capital letters is necessary?\"

And I think the practice of using AllCaps questions/answers should be discouraged

=v=

[Subject edited by staff or moderator 2005-02-03 20:05]

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It strikes me that a fair few people enter terms without any real thought as to whether they belong in the glossary.

At worse it is mis-translations, but quite often just completely unwieldy sentences/phrases which have no generic merit.

This really dilutes the future use of these glossaries as a good quality reference resource.

I am wondering if it is possible to draw up some simple guidelines/ground rules that could be emailed to every proz member and also perhaps presented interactively on each kudoz question as a check list of things to consider before they enter the term... is this a far-fetched request?

Obviously at present quality control on glossary entries is self-regulated, with a bit of extra control from anyone who can be bothered to clean up/correct other peoples entries. But it doesn\'t seem to do the job.

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Steffen WalterGermany Local time: 06:18Member (2002) English to German + ...

Excellent idea, Dan!

Dec 13, 2002

Hi Dan,

I fully support your idea and have just posted the issue to the moderators\' forum. Having said that, I will prepare a set of basic rules/principles asap for you to comment on.

Steffen

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Marcus MalabadCanada Local time: 06:18Member (2002) German to English + ...

fully support this idea

Dec 13, 2002

I\'d just like to throw some ideas that might help you write your guidelines, Steffen:

1) Do NOT write your question in large caps. This has been in the Kudoz rules since day 1 but some may not know about it. Please check FAQs. Mods have the option of squashing your question and asking you to resend.

2) If the KudoZ heading reads: \"see below\" , \"sentence please\", \"whole phrase please\" or anything that does not mention the exact word/phrase to be translated, and an answer is accepted, avoid entering these phrases in the glossary. Replace \"see below\", for example, with the exact phrase.

3). If you asked help with a sentence and you\'ve accepted an answer (which might be equally long or even longer), pick a part of the sentence (yours and in the answer) that might be of \"generic significance\", as Dan points out above. This would be parts of the sentence that created the most problem for you and that would help others untangle their problems.

4). Last one, and maybe most controversial: do NOT enter anything in the glossary if you think that the discussion is MORE likely to help in problem-solving than the specific answer itself. You shouldn\'t enter anything as well if you think that two or more good answers have been given, which would cover most of the spectrum of the given question\'s various contexts.

[ This Message was edited by: on 2002-12-13 17:12 ]

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Terry GilmanGermany Local time: 06:18Member (2003) German to English + ...

Sound suggestions

Dec 14, 2002

I like the fact that the discussions can be retrieved. A great feature.

Someone also mentioned elsewhere adding a feature to make your language-pair choice \"stick.\" Or is there already a way to do this?

[ This Message was edited by: on 2002-12-14 17:56 ]

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Steffen WalterGermany Local time: 06:18Member (2002) English to German + ...

Draft Glossary Rules

Dec 19, 2002

Hi all,

this is basically a repetition of what I\'ve just posted to the moderators\' forum to lay a foundation to the discussion process:

_____________

Golden Glossary Rules (draft #1)

1. Prior to entering a term/phrase/sentence, please check the KudoZ glossaries in order to find out whether it was already entered before in exactly the same field of specialisation, context or meaning. By

this, you will contribute to saving valuable memory space on the ProZ server.

2. You may wish to refrain from completing a glossary entry if you are not sure enough or if you have not gathered sufficient evidence

or peer support as to whether the term or phrase in question is correct in the given context.

3. Make sure that entries are made for the correct language pair/direction.

4. Provide for a ***thorough double check*** of spelling and grammar and – most importantly – consistency between source and target entry (e.g. NOT German \'Maßnahme\' vs English \'measures\' BUT \'Maßnahme\' vs \'measure\'). Pay particular attention to consistency of sentences and parts thereof.

5. Please do add short contextual information in brackets or asterisks. See an English-German example:

base of excavation (civil engineering)

Aushubsohle (Erdbau, Baugruben)

6. Do not use capitals, except in obvious cases, such as proper names, acronyms, initials of German nouns or sentences etc.

7. Eliminate any contamination prior to completion of an entry, including without limitation URLs or unnecessary commas, dots (...) or full stops. Use punctuation only in phrases and sentences where grammatically appropriate. By this, you will contribute to enhancing usability and legibility of entries.

___________________

These points may sound trivial and obvious but IMHO we have to start from the very basics here, given the loads of rubbish entered every day.

Do keep in mind that things should be kept `short and simple\' - or sweet , depending on perspective (which means that my version might even be a wee bit too long). We should actually end up with not more than ten very concise Golden Rules that can be captured at a glance. The first two items may sound a bit harsh and negative but I am of the opinion that \'less is more\', i.e. I\'d prefer having some sort of deterring factor in place to cater for those not at all willing to learn the basics of lexicography.

At the respective KudoZ question page, these rules could be linked to a procedure whereby people wanting to enter terms are automatically guided through a sequence of tick boxes in order to make sure that

they adhere to the rules. We would have to check whether such thing is technically feasible, or else, what effort it would take to implement that system.

Of course, such precautions wouldn\'t prevent any \'wrongdoer\' from simply rushing through the whole lot and entering whatever bullshit they want but we must at least lay a certain foundation to the process.

Glossary rules should be a priority item on next year\'s ProZ agenda, they should be implemented as soon as possible in January.

Feel free to comment!

Steffen

[ This Message was edited by:on2002-12-19 09:43]

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